


It Has to Be a Prank

by Silvara



Series: Keyboards and Sparks [1]
Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: A Prank (right?), Distrust, Humor, Jealousy, Other, Post-Tron: Legacy, Tronzler (Tron-Rinzler), Tronzler with AI powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 16:43:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7540186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvara/pseuds/Silvara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strange how easily Alan accepted to replace him at the meeting, this time! He asked him to ran an errand on the Grid in turn. Well, if it allowed him to skip three hours of charts and briefings, Sam isn't going to complain. What could turn wrong, really?</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Has to Be a Prank

**Author's Note:**

> A short, very simple oneshot featuring a very jealous Tronzler. Maybe the first entry of a series of drabbles.  
> Technically not an AU because, well, who know in how many ways Rinzler has changed Tron's character?
> 
> This is just a quick idea I wrote for fun, long ago.

With a smile tugging at his cheek and a tune in his head, Sam straddled his saddle, brought the engine of his vehicle alive and cracked his neck before kicking the beast onward.

Alan had accepted to replace him at the briefing as long as he would ran an errand for him on the Grid.

Having just avoided three long hours dozing off on a table, Sam feels lucky. ...And maybe just a little bit nervous.

Not because of the first part of the errand. Run some analyze on the Gris security was more boring than anything else.

It was the second part that bothered him a little. Entering Rinzler's building (or was it a repertory?) to get him to answers a few questions.

Alan had said the data was indispensable for the next patch of his program; the kind of data a program couldn't provide through an I/O tower.

That was the deal.

Sam had noticed the eagerness Alan literally glowed with as the end of the week approached, and with it, free time to go to the old arcade. He had been taking Tron's restoration as a very serious and personal affair. _Ridiculously much so, for all Sam was concerned._

...Which made Sam question that he would agree to sit on a business meeting when he could have been on the Grid, instead, not just gawking and probing at everything on the Grid as if it was Neverland itself, but actually working with Tron.

Which brought Sam back to his task.

Speaking of it, Sam wasn't completely sure that probing an unstable program with philosophic questions was a healthy activity for a user to conduct on the Grid.

Much less sure, even, if the identity of aforementioned program had freshly been torn to pieces by the meddling of a megalomaniac AI.

But well. It was still a better deal than the meeting.

Plus, Alan had already closed any possible backdoor in the code of (Rinz—Tron...well let's make it Tronzler). Alan wouldn't have sent him in there if he hadn't ensured that he would be safe around of his program, right?

Pondering that as he rode through the old city, the young man began to find the Grid too quiet, even with the hum of the main buildings and the chatters of a very few passerby did little to quell this feeling.

* * *

Sam didn't understand the greater dead that crawled up his skin when he entered the office of the security program.

Then, from a corner of a shadowed hall, the program's head immediately shot up toward him. Time seemed to freeze for a few nanos.

.

"[Greeting, SamFlynn]."

A little more confident not to see his blood spilled anywhere soon, he went in, his steps resounding against the dark polished floor of the large room. Without so much as getting up the program shown him to a seat on his bed - the only furniture currently rezzed besides the large desk.

As Rinzler had already made it clear in the past weeks that he would not speak of his glitches if that was not ultimately necessary, Sam did his best to explain the purpose of his visit until he got a tense sign of acknowledgement from the program. Tron...zler's constant withdrawal and aloofness could have made him appear self-sufficient were it not for the evidence of weariness all over his circuits. Rinzler used to twitch a lot more, though.

In the first times, any sudden move toward the program's disk usually resulted in crisis, and he still refused to interface with and other user than His.

For the next micro-c, through, he quietly answered Sam's questions without any ado while the user took notes. Some answers came more reluctantly than others, but eventuall all were addressed. Sam was done and ready to leave much sooner than he had thought. It was then that the part of his brain that wasn't completely sane decided that things were going too smooth. He found the question slipping from his mouth before he could process it:

"[Do you really trust users to upgrade your code after what you, er, everything that happened to you]?"

An uncomfortable silence settled for a while, and though Sam was pretty sure he did a good job wrapping it up with enough tact to keep his head on his shoulders, he nervously checked the firewall on the user dedicated drive where he had been rezzed, along with his connection shortcuts.

"[Users write bugs; users solve bugs]," came the program's surprisely calm -stoic- answer.

At that, Sam felt his chances to exit the building in one piece growing up again and his shoulders relaxed a little.

"[Many cycles ago]," the program added up, "[I have had a data exchange with AlanOne's compiler]." The tone drifted between fact and pleasantry but when Sam turned, the program's face was stern.

"[He wrote me a debugging function. He trusted me to recognize and prevent many of his errors. I do not think Flynn gave one to Clu.] [The answer to that question lies in my code, and my code is who I am. AlanOne has read my code. AlanOne has created most of it.]."

The silence was heavy as the program's gaze sharpened, and Sam swore he was sawing nothing less than a maniacal glow in them, then.

"[Users are users, SamFlynn. I am purposed to direct most users without their consent, and to distrust a good share of them, alongside.] [My programming doesn't needs me to trust but one of them; my Administrator. AlanOne. Others are entities made to be protected, verified, stopped or quarantined]."

As there was a final point to that statement, Sam nodded, not feeling at ease enough to think this just there. He turned to the slidding door-pannel in one of the silver walls, but just before it opened, Tron got up.

"[SamFlynn]?'

The tone was low and wary now. Sam's breath hitched for a bili-c.

"[Yes]?"

"[If you don't mind, there is a question that I would ask in my turn]."

The young man felt his his eyebrows jump in his hair but did a good job catching them to keep a semblance of control on his nerves.

Before he could answer, the program —who was allegedly acounted as being _Basic_ , also with no more than the leeway of a very low intelligence— was marching toward him at a pace that demanded attention. (Sam straightened and drew his feet together before he could help himself.)

"[Does _my_ Creator...functions well ]?" These words were simple, but the question came with a dripping suspicion.

Sam noted the choice of title used for Alan this time. Did that make the program's query more or less personnal? —It took almost a bill-c for Sam to understand that he still had the control of his voice and movements.

The user shrugged, with what he hoped still looked like despondency.

"[Yeah, he's just busy somewhere else right now]."

Time passed again in an even ticker silence as Sam felt his eyes being drilled through by the program's searing stare.

Eventually, when Sam was about to babble an excuse to get away from the building, the monitor nodded and sat on a low black desk.

"[I... _AlanOne_ didn't mention anything about delegating his cyclical visit. Yet you are telling the truth]..."

And with that, the ageless face of the old program was overshadown by a frown. Still, his eyes remained riveted into the user's skull, following every of his moves.

[You can leave. This time the building will now let you exit it]."

Oh well. If he was dismissed, Sam saw no reason to tally—wait _what_?

* * *

Driving back toward the portal, the words are still ringing in Sam's ears.

As he passes it, the data-feed of warnings continue to scroll in his mind, from his disk as it has since Tron has begun to question him himself.

Hey, _really_ ?

With an heavy sight, Sam walks upstairs until his can feel the steady old couch beneath him.

Maybe the three hours Encom meeting wouldn't be too bad next time.

Because, yeah, the job wasn't exactly all fun, but no one has locked him up in the tower as far.

One thing he will remember is never to trust Alan if he agreed to replace him so easily at a meeting. Okay—maybe he could have taken the job a _little_ more seriously, but...c'mon !

Second, if Tron's hasn't broke a cog or two and gone nuts, then his old twig was more sleazy and cunning that Sam gave him credit for. The old man would have made his point across, but there were a lots of less weird ways for Alan to say that he wanted his off time to meet his program. Then even, only a megalomaniac would habve set a prank like that with his program and it didn't exactly ressemble Alan. The alternative was a little more worisome, and not nearly as much as the possibility that, Tron having that level of permissions even in his current state was something Alan considered as safe.

No one sane should have to deal with his software, anyway.

Sam shook his head with a snort and grabbed a beer. giving it a long look before he re-hydrated his gall—hell, he's definitely going to bring a pack on the Gird, next time!

Heh, no one _sane_ should have to deal with Alan's software, _still true alright,_ but _well,_ he's alive, wasn't he? And there's science to do: who else was going to test if programs could get drunk on beer on the Grid?

He had a noble mission now; purpose and all.

Besides if _'AlanOne'_ wanted to play that way, he still had to repay his kindness.

He scoffed.

 _Of course..._ this _had_ to be prank...


End file.
